Monday, January 27, 2014

Open line topics: The UA gravy train and the GOP war on women

* A DEEPER LOOK AT THE UPPER CRUST AT UA-FAYETTEVILLE: The blog Academic Daylight: Transparency at the University of Arkansas does what it says, shines a light on policies and practices, particularly financial, at the state's largest university campus. In this post, it elaborates on some information we'd reported previously on the fat pay raises granted the inner circle around Chancellor David Gearhart, notably including several who've backed him and his account of events in the Advancement Division financial mess and coverup.

Findings include more pay than previously reported for some officials. Askance looks are cast.

Scott Varady, working as General Counsel for the System Office, was even awarded two raises in just a few months. He now makes $200,000, 32% more than in 2013. General Counsel has played a significant if somewhat covert role in the whole crisis. For example, they provided the fake justification for withholding records from journalists’ FOIA requests. When the prosecutor’s office investigated possible FOIA violations by UA administrators, the UA attorneys interviewed critical witnesses in presence of Gearhart’s private attorney. The conduct of these interviews on September 24, 2013 was initially revealed by John Diamond in legislative testimony. The UA has confirmed that the interviews have taken place but contends that no related records, notes, transcripts, or emails exist, and no comment has been made as to the purpose. Why did Varady’s taxpayer-funded salary make a sudden jump last December?

But it's over. The UA Board of Trustees has decreed there'll be no more looking back, just forward. But to what? If the past is prologue .... At a minimum I think we can safely predict the rising tide will lift the boats of the muckety-mucks, if nothing else.

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GOP MISOGNY DEAD?: Google 'Wendy Davis' and see what's coming out of their mouths.

* SPEAKING OF HIGHER ED: REPUBLICANS GO TO SCHOOL ON WOMEN: Interesting article by the AP on how the Republican Party is schooling its candidates on how to talk about women without insulting them, even if the policies the candidates support are contrary to the interest of families and women, particularly in medical autonomy. Somebody must have told U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton to lay low for a few days about his personhood legislation while such legislation was used as the cornerstone of forcing an unimaginable tragedy on the Munoz family in Texas — required by the state to keep a brain-dead women alive for six months to force the birth of a severely damaged fetus. This is pro-family and pro-life to today's Republican Party.

Somebody failed to deliver this message to the Tea Party Republican in South Carolina, who took the misogynist beatups of Wendy Davis, the Democratic guberatorial candidate, to a new level. See, Davis' husband looked after her kids when she went to law school. That's the woman's job. To tend to kids while MAN goes to law school. And she did split up with her husband after. Man does that, it's the hunter-gatherer thing. Woman does, that? Well, read some of the tweets from Todd Kincannon, the former head of the South Carolina Republican Party. Emphasis supplied to one particularly egregious quote, which really gets at the whole Huckabee women-are-essentially-nothing-but-sexual-vessels theme:

Wendy Davis has done even more to damage modern feminism than Monica Lewinsky playing Human Humidor with Bill Clinton in the Oval Office.
— Todd Kincannon (@Todd__Kincannon) January 23, 2014

The best thing about the Wendy Davis fiasco is this: It proves that you can still call a whore a whore. Feminazis ain't won yet, my friends.
— Todd Kincannon (@Todd__Kincannon) January 23, 2014

Wendy Davis stimulates the kneepad economy. And a lot of penises. RT @Shadowboxer50 I wonder how many knee pads she went through at Harvard?
— Todd Kincannon (@Todd__Kincannon) January 23, 2014

And Joe Scarborough said on his show today that Republicans should use Monica Lewinsky against Hillary Clinton in 2016 if Democrats talk about the Republican war on women. Sorry. I can't parse that. But to a Republican, it makes sense. Somehow. Hillary can't talk about invasive anti-abortion laws because her husband had an affair 18 years ago. Get it?

And then there's Red State blogger, too much for even Greta van Susteren. I wonder sometimes about women Republicans like I do about Log Cabin Republicans. How much is too much?

An Arkansas anti-abortion law is a phony. It's about ending abortion, not protecting women and a New York Times writer says it could present an important case for the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Arkansas Supreme Court continues to grapple, with divisions, on how to square new federal and state law on resentencing people who got life without parole sentences for capital crimes committed when they were minors.

The State Police say Brett McCullough, 52, of Hot Springs, was killed by a hit-and-run driver while riding a bicycle about 8:47 p.m. Wednesday on Highway 70 West (Airport Road) in Hot Springs.

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